anagramofbrat | Entries tagged with music: bells

So last night was the annual Ghoulesque show, and since it was my monthly excuse to play dress up AND the Halloween show, I of course rose to the occasion.

'sup.

Sooo getting up at 7am yesterday to very quickly braid white yarn into the hair was definitely a worthwhile endeavor. I've already gotten one request to do this again for the Spookhouse party instead of doing Lana and honestly I'm considering it for budgetary reasons. Lana will happen at some point, especially since

aersi already does Pam and we've talked about doing a double cosplay sometime. But yeah, this outfit got almost as much love as the Carmen one two months back, so I'm clearly doing something right in terms of theme costumes. Plus even without the eyes, the stitches and lipstick alone freaked Wee Beastie out before I left and he's a tough kid to creep out (with the exception of spiders). So all around, success and victory.

Here have another one for extra special freakiness.

It's MUCH creepier with teeth, I'm told, lol.

Never fails, though, morning after rolling back home at 1am from Burlesque I have to drag myself out of bed for bells. Which is hard enough considering I'm usually beat from the show, but this morning I overslept because I had a warm tiny purring asshole snuggled tightly against me and... cat gravity happens, no matter how annoying your alarm might be. (It's currently "All About That Bass." Which no one wants to hear first thing in the morning. Ever.) We did well, and we were at the beginning of service so I got to slip out quick but still. Ugh. Husbeast is still snoring right now, I'm very tempted to crawl back in with him after I post this. Or make ham and cheese omelets. I haven't quite decided which. Hm.

Current Mood: pleased

Apparently the minister's son recorded us. I'm the one juggling three big bells and a tiny one over on the right.

Current Mood: busy

I had a bell performance this morning, which I managed to record onto The Preciousssss.

You know, in case anyone is curious what I spend my Wednesday evenings and occasional Sunday mornings on.

Current Mood: pleased

Little less exhausted now, lol.

I started yesterday morning by sending

cell23 off to his 24 hour D&D adventure with the usual suspects at the Fortress of Atramoria, then finished up both my hair and the second season of Luther. Mmmm, Idris Elba... *drool* I am no longer unkempt; my hair is now shot with threads of a glorious cherry cola fire type dye lot, though this time it was definitely a case of the color being pretty over the yarn being easy to work with. Lighter, softer yarn = smaller twists = more time. Ow, my hands. I really need to just stick to worsted weight, no matter how pretty the color.

Yes, I took a picture. I don't particularly like it, but hey it was taken at 2am after a fun but exhausting night, bite me. (The one on my facebook is better.)

Dear gods, I have a giant forehead. I think actually that qualifies as a sixhead, actually. Really need to stop yanking my hair back in between yarn stages I think. Also, my actual hair has gotten all kinds of long. I usually don't tie off the yarn until a half inch or so after my actual hair stops when doing this, and so now the twisty parts of my hair fall a bit past the shoulders now. I still can't wrap my mind around the idea of my hair actually growing without snapping off into split end hell around my chin, but I'll take it.

As an aside, if anyone out there (and this better be all of you) is a Muppet fan? Even if, like me, you hate Elmo with the passion of a thousand fiery suns, check out the Kevin Clash documentary on netflix, Being Elmo. It's great. You may even cry.

After hurr was done, I met up with

aersi for skirt shopping adventures, which were fairly short in the end because I found a perfectly fluttery, too-short skirt for burlesque at Goodwill, which was the first place we stopped. I found a more respectable work/interview skirt as well. I'm weirdly elated that from the waist down I'm still comfortably fitting into L sizes. There are limits as to how tiny I can get and still retain my sanity, plus I LIKE having a booty, thank you! After that we hit up Old Navy and then went to McD's to indulge a mutual mcnugget and shake craving and also so

aersi could get herself the My Little Pony happy meal toys. I swear, pony fandom has completely eaten my friends list, lol. (It is an adorable cartoon for the most part.) We also drove up into the wilds of Deerfield in search of the Bridal Barn*, since they also carry my dress brand and I wanted to comparison shop. Fleh, $200 more. Course, 200 more vs driving all the way ass down to CT. *whine* decisions. Oh well. It wasn't an entirely unfruitful trip - I now have a business card with swatches of my wedding colors stapled to it, and

aersi and I spent about half an hour alternately squeeing, giggling, and recoiling at various tuxedo styles. Man, I tell you what, Western tux styles. Yeah, I got nothin'.**

Caught a nap, overslept, then hauled somewhat scantily clad ass to Northampton to kitten/"whore" at Bon Appetit Burlesque, which was just as much if not more fun than just attending the show. Basically the MC, Hors D'oeuvres‡ has "Hors Whores" that set up props for each performer and clean up the stage between acts as well as occasionally help the performers out if they need it while they're on stage. Backstage? It's pretty much stage managing, which I haven't done since high school drama and wellp, I found out that I actually miss the backstage theater running around shit. (There are reasons why Noises Off is one of my favorite plays.)

While running around in extremely impractical boots (yes the same ones I posted earlier - dear gods, my feet today!) I got to fangirl squee all over my favorite performers, including Dot Mitzvah and Nikki LeVillain, help out with a couple of acts, buy drinks for Hors, and freak out all over the cue and stage setup books. At the same time, while most of the squirekids were either held up at home due to Sunday work commitments‡‡ or the 24 hour D&D session†, this was one of those shows where I saw a crapton of people I don't usually see, so there were drinks bought for me by

grinninfoole, squee and hugs from Hobiecat Kitzmiller, and best of all, a completely unexpected appearance by The Cute Girl. (leather jacket? fishnets? yes please!)†† I also made a little bit of money - didn't realize kittens got a cut of the tip buckets, so that was a bonus. I helped run around and clean up after the show and drove home, enjoying the now-rare luxury of a nearly deserted I91 and some good music on the radio.

I overslept a bit again this morning and had to rocket out the door to make bell rehearsal on time. We sounded good, even if I picked up the wrong bell right at the end of our piece (D'oh!) and then I came home and crawled back into bed with an unconscious

cell23, where we slept in until 3 instead of doing the running around we'd planned. *womp womp* Oh well. Sometimes decadently lazy Sundays are needed.

tl;dr, it's been something of an excellent weekend. And WTF 6:30 and still being daylight out? This better not mean it's pitch black at 6am again, damn it...

* which I unfortunately conflate in my head with the Bedding Barn. That makes interesting imagery, let me tell you.

** Also zoot suit styles. You know, in case your ideal wedding is a recreation of the Smooth Criminal video, in which case I say your wedding is invalid unless you can get your entire party to do this.

‡ Pronounced kind of like if you were saying "Whores Divorce" in a very snooty Park Avenue accent.

‡‡ Though consider, one of the guys from Sirlesque not only had to drive back to Boston after the show (and I know they didn't hit the road until a bit after midnight), he had to be at work at 5am the following morning. That is some dedication to the craft for you.

† I may have to sit down and compile a post of tweets from that - they were wheeze inducing, especially starting around hour 13.

†† *shifty eyes* we may have a date to see The Artist on Wednesday night. Eeeep! Also I need to find more footnote symbols. Or just number the damn things next time.

Current Mood: happy

The weathermen have said to expect 1-4 inches of snow for the last three days. Other than a sprinkle that was gone by 10am? no snow. Temperatures dropped and errthang, but nothing fell from the sky. At least it sorta feels like winter out there - other than the freak snowstorm around Halloween we haven't really had any winter weather of note this year.... which of course means we're going to get five feet around beginning to mid-April. I'd not be surprised if we got snowed into PAX.

Anyway. So life, not much really to report at the moment. I've been fighting off a chest cold for a little over a week; today I'm ready to declare the battle lost. Mostly because I can; I'm done with today's bell performance (which went much better than previous ones) and I've got nothing planned for the rest of the day. I did want to get productive things done with the time, but considering how I feel right now, I'm declaring fuck it and reserve the right to hide in my nice warm bed with library books and the iPad relentlessly consuming media and occasionally whining pathetically at

cell23 to get me things so I don't have to move. Considering what the last couple of days have been like with regard to social, family and wedding stuff commitments, I'm not too surprised my body is all "No, seriously, bitch, lay down and rest a spell."

Course, I can't complain, other than being punctuated by coughing the past couple days had their really good moments. Friday I spent running around doing wedding shit (more about that in a separate entry because there is a LOT of blathering to be done about that) and yesterday I spent first up in Athol at

cell23's uncle's birthday brunch, and then later we went to Moti's for dinner and all I can say is oooooooh, Persian lamb stew nom nom. After that there was the Bon Appetit Burlesque's Love/Hate Show and, well, boobies. Also there is something incredibly happy about ending your day by being sassed (and then hugged) by an adorable drag queen in a wedding dress. I seriously have more than a little bit of a crush on Hors D'Oeuvres, I'm not even going to lie.

It was during the second half of the show that I (and indeed, everyone else in the audience) heard about Whitney Houston. ( this got long. )

Anyway. About that lying down, resting a spell and feeling miserable... Waiting to Exhale has been on my Netflix queue forever, maybe today's a good day to actually watch it.

Current Mood: contemplative

Cold has progressed southward. I now have a chokey, phlegm-y cough to contend with. Yay. At least it goes away if I'm warm, but the trip to work was miserable.

Mood seems to have broken for the time being. Not sure what changed, but not knocking it.

By request, I baked the cheese biscuits again last night for the monday night gamers, to much appreciation. Combat is funny when everyone including the GM has their mouths full. Again, the main pain in the butt with this recipe is grating the cheese. Also remembering to set our oven 25 degrees lower than directed. It runs hot.

Odd desire to pull out the sketchbook and start drawing again. Not that I was ever all that great at it, but sometimes I get this urge to sketch things and it's on me now. I kinda want to do a series of pictures of characters I've played in various games in the past year, especially since the last regular one I've been in seems to be going on indefinite hiatus. But yeah, I kinda want to sit and draw my favorites. Anita and Mare, definitely, and possibly also the De'ath girl (I forget her first name) I played in the steampunk adventure with Lori's gang. I liked her a lot. Hell, even Sara Morgan from the SODA Vampire run has been up and wandering through my head lately. I also want to draw out the characters for SQWRRL, since currently I've got other people's images up on the site and I want to fix that at some point.

Other things I want to draw if this mood stays with me - I need to find the original vector files for the chibi pirate and ninja in my icon and see if I can either update that picture or do another one in the series, possibly for use in save-the-date cards. (

cell23 requested shooping in a wee TARDIS in the background of whatever picture we use. His random attacks of fanboy are pretty cute, ngl.) I also have a sketch of

11th_letter among my papers that I've meant to flesh out and finish up for a couple years going I should tend to.

Who am I kidding, between all the stuff that needs doing, when the hell am I gonna have time to fucking draw? lol. Why can't these things just manifest, fully finished, from my head?

Fehh speaking of creative imagery, I'm about a week behind on my 365. Need to get back on top of that.

Not much else going, in other news.

Current Mood: okay

It occurs to me that we're getting on pretty late in the holiday season and I have yet to see this ad cross my TV.

Hopefully Hersheys hasn't finally retired it. I mean, this commercial is a big reason why I got into handbells in the first place way back when.

Current Mood: nostalgic

Today is going somewhat better than earlier this week - this is the first day in at least a week where food (smelling, consuming or even just thinking about it) did not make me want to vomit immediately. 'Cause let me tell you, feeling like that and forcing yourself to eat or swallow pills despite it? Worlds and worlds of not fun. And then there was the whole thing where I couldn't tell the difference between hunger and nausea for awhile. That was fun. I'm still getting that in much smaller degrees, but I'm glad I can get some nutrition into me without it being as much of an ordeal. Especially since I have a lunch date tomorrow and I am rather looking forward to that quesadilla. But yeah, what the hell, it's like I have to re-teach my body how to eat again. Or at least convince it that the objects I keep putting into my mouth are friendly and not full of either vile poison or razor blades. Yes, I see where your brain went there, shut up.

BELLS TODAY OMG OMG OMG! Yeah, I might be a little excited about this. I mean it was nice to have an extra day in the week with no hard commitments, but I missed ringing more than I expected. This was probably subtly reinforced by the fact that I keep running into the bell choir director on the bus to work in the morning since she works at UMass. But yeah in the words of Animal, "YEAH! DING DONG!"

Come to think if it, I should send that to my bell director. ETA: also make an animated icon of Animal playing handbells.

I hope to get productive stuff done tonight after bells, but I've been coming home so wiped out/exhausted/ill that pretty much it's stagger in the door, feed the cat, nerf around on reddit for a bit, go to sleep accidentally for four hours, wake up at like 10:30, curse the wasted evening, shower up, go back to sleep until worktimes. But considering the back to school rush is well and truly over at SCCS, and the minions are doing a competent job of relieving me of retail floor duty, and I'm actually feeling marginally human instead of a zombie, who knows. But I've got a house to clean up before kidvasion on Friday and actual!work to do for Old Job that I'm getting behind on, so be nice if I could stay mostly conscious when I finally do get home tonight. Just a thought.

Icon is appropriate, due to bells being all in a church and all the music being devotional.

Current Mood: content
Current Music: DIIIING DOOOOOOONG DIIIIIING DOOOOOOOOONG

Been beading up a storm this weekend. Well, not really, as I've been working on two bracelets simultaneously on the loom and taking my time with both. One is a silver ascii rose, the other is a more kink oriented design:

I was gonna put in an actual picture but ~~I eated it~~ the Hatemonger is out of juice for the moment. I'm actually finished beading the silver rose, SLAVE requires a few more chain links. Thinking next time I do it I'm going to kill the drop shadowing effect - it looks great if you look at it from the side, and kinda muddled from the front. Thinking just a flat silver will work better. The more you know.

Sadly after I get done with SLAVE I will be out of black beads again. What, that took all of a week? *shakes head* Bulk ordering, for real. Actually if I can make it to the Garment District while I'm in NY I'm going to see if I can just buy black delicas by the hank. While I'm at it, looking for small buckles might not be a bad idea. I think I figured out how to make them work.

Seems like my beading stuff is falling into three categories; bigger pieces (like Bowser and the Castlevania screenshot I want to do, plus my own stuff), geeky wristband type things, and stuff for the kink market. Some nice niches to be found in all three categories, I think.

Its good to be cranking out actively creative stuff again. I've had quite a few people this weekend comment that they wouldn't have the patience to sit hunched over a bead loom for hours on end, but I see it as not all that different from other things that look tedious from an outside perspective but are supposedly either calming to the mind or is some sort of creative expression... I make bracelets, others golf, still others spend hours meticulously plotting encounters for their D&D games. We all gotta relax somehow, right?

In not-bead news, my allergies KILLED me this weekend. I spent most of yesterday outdoors at the Geoffroys' and paid for it by having a two hour allergy attack. I rubbed my eyes so raw I needed ice to get them to stop puffing up and hurting, and several hours after that to be able to close my eyelids without having them immediately adhering shut. Not fun. That's it, I've resolved to stay mostly indoors until all the lilacs die, cause that shit yesterday was utter balls. But on the upside the cookout was very nice and I did get to go home stuffed to the gills with nothing but animal protein, so that bit was happy at least. Today was somewhat busier what with the last bell performance of the season (we reconvene in September) and then gaming with

extrajoker and co. in the afternoon. We're done with the werewolf campaign and are now doing a GURPS Victorian Steampunk sort of thing, so I rolled up kind of a cross between Kaylee from Firefly and Ed from Cowboy Bebop with a dash of Arya Stark for flavor in that I'm a teenage girl learning to fly, repair, maintain and all around be in love with airships. So far I like my little curly haired gearhead in pants. And afterwards I got sent home with a small crafty thing of

extrajoker's: she makes crocheted fortune cookies full of catnip with a rattly bit inside, and a little satin fortune sticking out. It has since become Lily's bestie. Seriously, she played with that thing for hours.

So yeah, it was a good, reasonably busy weekend... next couple of days will no doubt be spent running around dreading the trip down to the city, per usual.

Current Mood: tired
Current Music: Head: Tom Jones - Black Betty (bam ba lam)

I've been feeling very much like Strong Bad lately with regard to what I do for a living, and also for fun/friends on the side (albeit with a flakealicious time-delay). I specifically refer to the TROGDOR edition of the Strong Bad emails, where, in teaching everyone how to draw Trogdor he keeps yelling "CONSUMMATE Vs! I SAID CONSUMMATE!" Swap out "Consummate Vs" for "Subtle Gradients" and you've pretty much summed up my entrenchment in current web development trends. I SAID SUBTLE. LIKE YOU HAVE TO STARE AT THE BUTTON FOR FIVE MINUTES TO REALLY TELL IF THERE'S ACTUALLY A GRADIENT THERE OR NOT. It's not like I dislike gradients, but they are getting up there with decorating your entire geocities site in animated gifs 12 years ago: they're fucking everywhere, and in almost every element of a site these days. I completely and totally blame Apple for this.

Also? It should not be this hard to find a working, up to date PHP script that will parse and spit out an XML RSS feed. I mean, come on, really? lolsigh, I really have to get out of the development game. Just not sure what else I can/want to do at this point.

Bells was good last night; the Carol is coming together, even if I still screw up a few of the quicker runs in it. Also the new piece we have is... interesting. Lots of actual Ringing Technique in it, like tower swings and table damps and what have you. And syncopation. eek. I'm playing smaller bells for it, which I have to admit is a nice change. I'm a total size queen with bells usually, but even picking up the X₄'s tires me out after a while, and they're by no means the biggest I've handled. (I think the Smith choir went down one more octave.) Still, big bells are heavy. X₆'s are a nice break. Course I have to remember now that they don't take quite as much force to ring. Much like me and modern car doors, I suppose - growing up learning to put my entire weight behind what felt like two ton Cadillac sedan doors circa 1983, it's kinda no wonder that I still slam the fuck out of car doors if I'm not careful about it. Ugh, that goddamn car, lol. Anyway, practice was good, if cold (the church's heat is out of commission while they work on the oil tanks), and when I got home, there was pizza waiting for me. Nom.

Wow, the beginning of that last paragraph is stupid easy to misread.

Today: LISTS OF DOOM. News at 11.